Archives / Tag: Personal

I’m posting this here on behalf of the guys at Bancroft Developments. For the past two years we’ve (Nine Four) rented an office from them but alas we’ve moved on and so they’re looking for a new tenant.

They’ve been great landlords so we’d like to help them out. Here are the details;

• Single room office on Crowthorne High Street in Berkshire (RG45 7AH).

• Space for 3 to 4 people/desks and a small meeting table etc.

• Very light and airy, warm in the winter and cool in the summer (even has built in air con).

• Communal kitchen and W/C shared with 3 other tenants.

• Available on a license to occupy basis (no business rates or services to pay for!) at £500 PCM with one months notice.

If you’re interested or know someone that might be point them in my direction or contact Patrick directly through their website. Just tell them I sent you. :)

Anton is trying to raise the funds to author, illustrate and publish a graphic novel called ‘GATHER’ using Kickstarter. You should back him!

It’s some time since we waved goodbye to the awful unreliable lump that was our Kia Sedona and back in 2009 I set myself the target of denying Kia £1 million in car sales to repay them for their glorious customer service ethos.

Well, just over 2 years later the blog posts here on the subject have amassed a rather reasonable 32,508 unique views… if each person that read about our experience with Kia was turned off from ever buying one then that’s a lot of potential customers down the drain.

Now it would be daft to assume that all those users are actually potential Kia owners (though they could be), instead lets work on the basis that only a teeny tiny 0.5% of those visitors were actually people who were considering buying a Kia and lets consider that the average Kia costs in the region of £10,000. Despite the small percentage this still suggests a rather impressive £1.6 million worth of potential sales now lost. Therefore I declare victory.

To close I’ll just say that I found this recent article about the planned demise of the Kia Sedona in 2011 a mildly amusing read, in particular the following line from a Kia company representative:

…production [of the Kia Sedona] will end due to reduced demand.

Well hopefully my readers made a small contribution to that reduction.

You might also want to read:

• Whatever you do, don’t buy a Kia Sedona
• Kia Reliability
• Don’t let the door hit you on the way out

Today is a day I will forever remember for today we are finally rid of our badly built, unreliable, fault ridden Kia Sedona. We had to endure 2 years of appalling customer service and laughable offers of recompense but this morning we took great pleasure in bidding that lump of junk a not so fond farewell. Good bye RX57 BLN, you will not be missed but I pity your next owner.

Just a short post really to rant publicly about the shocking reliability of our now 2 year old Kia Sedona. It’s 5 days since our car was delivered to West London Motor Group Kia in High Wycombe on the back of an AA truck. Our 2nd breakdown in 2 years of ownership (I won’t go into detail about the crazy number of times its been back and forth to the dealership in that period for non fatal reliability and build quality issues).

Now, you’d think that a car being towed pretty much guarantees an upset disgruntled customer and that presented with this situation a dealership (and the manufacturer) should be doing everything possible to expedite the process of getting the owner back on the road, in their own car. However as you’re sure to find out, if you’re unlucky enough to own a Kia, this simply isn’t the case. First off the importance of your situation will be directly affected by the recovery service that is used to deliver the car to the garage! Yes, it’s true, direct from the mouth of Kia Customer Services. If the RAC bring your car in you’re in luck, if it was the AA, it’s to the back of the line for you. Not all customers are equal.

I imagined (perhaps incorrectly) that it would make sense to prioritise the totally borked vehicles that have rolled in over the weekend – call the customers who have routine services booked and re-schedule them, safe in the knowledge that they have a vehicle which works (for now) and this will probably only be a minor inconvenience to them. Now you’ve got an empty workshop you can sort those broken Kia’s up and ship them back out! No chance… the reality is that your car is already at the back of the line and it’s gonna have to fit in around anything else that’s booked in this week.

So today, 5 days down the line our car still isn’t fixed and I have very little faith in them resolving whatever outstanding issues there are with that hunk of junk this side of the weekend. In fact I even kinda doubt it will be fixed on Monday. Obviously they’ve been all to happy to offer us a courtesy car (Remember there’s a £10 administration fee though) to ‘get us mobile’, but a car which you cannot physically fit 3 children and 2 adults in really isn’t going to get us mobile at all is it.

Of course I’ve been on the phone to Kia Customer Services but they seem about as useful as a chocolate teapot. In fact they even lied blatantly about asking a manager about the situation and then made numerous excuses as to why we then couldn’t talk to that person ourselves. This car and the customer service we’ve received from Kia has been a total and utter disaster, from the day we took delivery of it right up until now. In 12 months the warranty expires and quite frankly that scares the shit out of me. If you take anything from this blog post, let it be this – Whatever you do, don’t buy a Kia.

15 months ago we purchased a brand spanking new Kia Sedona from our local dealership in Reading. Right from the day we took delivery of the car things have just not been right. Initially it was ill fitted and scratched dashboard panels but after a week we also noticed that there was an intermittent problem with the electric sliding doors.

The electric doors simply failed to close correctly on regular occasions. This fault would manifest itself in a number of ways:

1. On attempting to close the door from either the fob, handle or internal controls it would slide to a closed position and then open up fully immediately of it’s own accord. Sometimes it would take up to 18 attempts to get the door to close. So much for the convenience of an electric sliding door (one of the features that attracted us to the car in the first place).
2. On attempting to close the door (as above) it would close fully but then open by about 1 inch of it’s own accord some 5 or 6 seconds later. Giving you just enough time to get in the car and drive off with the children in the seats. The door then ‘flinging’ fully open once in motion.

We reported the problems to the Evans Halshaw Kia dealership and arranged for the vehicle to go back in for repair. The fit of the dashboard panels was rectified but the dealership claimed that they could not reproduce the problem with the doors yet for us it persisted.

The car was booked in again, again returned without a solution and booked back in again and again and again… we even provided the dealership with video footage of the fault since we felt they simply did not beleive us.

On one particular occasion we drove to the dealership to drop the car off and collect a courtesy vehicle with all 3 kids in tow only to discover that the courtesy car had no petrol and a faulty petrol cap, making it impossible for us to fill the vehicle.

Again and again we were fobbed off by the Evans Halshaw Kia dealership in Reading. We then discovered upon trying to book the car in one day that they had lost their franchise and that they would no longer be able to deal with the issues we had with the vehicle (Great!).

It took us some time to find a new local dealership that could provide a courtesy car. West London Motor Group Kia in High Wycombe in this case.

We booked the car in with them to see if perhaps they could resolve the issues with the electric sliding doors. Initially we encountered the same problems, they were unable to reproduce the problem with the doors but did replace a number of parts. Another visit later and still no joy. By now as you can well imagine the situation was no longer in any way amusing. We were having to ferry our children about in a car which we simply no longer felt safe in and were well and truly fed up with the frequent visits to and from the dealership.

We decided to contact Kia customer services in the vein hope that they might be able to sort things out for us and let us enjoy the car which we had paid good money for.

After applying a fair degree of pressure we eventually convinced Kia customer services to provide us with a like for like replacement vehicle for a period of a week while they had our vehicle in to resolve the issues with the doors.

Alas nothing with Kia is simple (or enjoyable)…

On dropping our car of at the dealership we realised that the replacement vehicle that they had provided would not accommodate 3 children in car seats. We called Kia and informed them, they claimed that the rental company had contacted us to ask if the car was ok and I had confirmed that it would be fine (a complete lie). I requested that they provide us with a new rental car that would accommodate the children such that we could actually go out as a family in one car (not an unreasonable request when we have purchased a £20k family car from them). They claimed that they could not provide a suitable vehicle (not what I had been told when they promised a like for like replacement in the first place) so I suggested that I could find a suitable rental vehicle myself and they could reimburse us the cost of said vehicle.

Whilst this seems like a reasonable suggestion and a logical solution which would leave them with a happy customer they initially refused to cover the costs. A couple of heated phone conversations later they finally did the right thing and agreed to pay for the rental vehicle that we had located. The rental firm that provided us with the unsuitable vehicle (via Kia) tried to sting us for damage to the rental car totaling £150 but that’s another story.

By now I’ve spent a considerable amount of time and energy trying to resolve the issues with the car and have had to take time off work on numerous occasions to deliver the car to the dealership and collect it again. By perhaps what can only be described as a stroke of luck, after having the car for a full week, the dealership managed to fix the problems with the door. Ironically this was the result of following instructions from a technical bulletin that had been issued by Kia regarding the lot from which our car was born… something which we suggested that both dealerships investigate a number of times.

You might think that this is the end of the story, alas it is not. Since collecting the car we have discovered that during icy weather the rear sliding doors now often refuse to open at all (again an intermittent issue) and the air conditioning has stopped working completely so we have the car booked in with the garage for ‘another’ visit on the 2nd of January.

Today (1st of January) whilst out with the whole family in the car I realised that the engine was not responding as it should, the car was loosing power on hills and struggling to maintain motorway speed. We managed to get off the motorway (not a great place to stop with 3 small children) and pulled up. With a burning smell and smoke emanating from the engine bay we decided not to proceed any further. Thank god we were following friends so they helped us to ferry the children back home and the very nice man from the AA came out to tow the car to the Kia dealership.

So the question now is what next… can we really ‘endure’ this car any more. We seem to have a lemon… a car built on a Friday perhaps? In any case the stress associated with this car has us considering our options… even if that means selling the car at a huge loss just to get into something reliable and safe for our family.

Kia are unwilling to even consider replacing the vehicle or making any kind of good will payment to alleviate the trouble we have had… apparently all we can expect from them is a free service and I simply don’t think that’s good enough.

Whilst dropping the car off at the dealership today with the nice man from the AA I happened across a chap eying some of the cars on the forecourt, he was looking to buy a new Kia Sorento. I advised him strongly against purchasing a Kia and relayed the story of how reliable and well built our Sedona is, he seemed convinced… so that’s about £20,000 I’ve just lost Kia.

I’ll continue to relay my story to every person I know and meet until I’ve lost Kia at least £1,000,000 in sales. With 5,000 unique visitors to this blog every month and an extensive social networking contacts list I’m pretty confident in my quest.

Update: Join the ‘“I promise to never buy a Kia”:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=43198716087’ Facebook group to show your support!

Update: I’ve taken it upon myself to write some frank and honest reviews on a number of motoring websites to help warn others off buying Kia.

• Parkers Kia Sedona Review

I think it’s fair to say that once you’ve got to know a number of well respected individuals within the web design and development ‘blogosphere’ it’s easy to feel that everything you write on your blog must be absolutely right or failing that, a total revelation for your readers which will bring you fame, glory and tits, sorry I meant ‘hits’.

Sometimes I have to step back and remind myself that actually this is ‘my blog’ and I can write whatever I want on it, hell I can even be wrong if I want, there’s nothing wrong with being totally and absolutely off target once in a while.

Sorry, just wanted to make a note of that. As you were!

Just over 2 years after I first got my Xbox 360 and I have been graced with the 3 flashing red lights or “Red Ring of Death’ as it is affectionatley known.

I’m particuarly narked as I just bought GTA IV a few weeks back and hadn’t had a good chance to play it until tonight!

So, I called Xbox support here in the UK (though I think I was re-routed to India along the way) and my fears were confirmed. My Xbox is dead. They are sending me a returns lable via email and have asked that I wrap the Xbox in bubble wrap and place it in a plain cardboard box. When I asked if I could return it in the original box they stated that under no circumstances should I return it in a box with any Microsoft or Xbox insignia. How strange… perhaps they are trying to hide the number or returns from UPS staff here in the UK.

I gave the nice lady a bit of grief about the fact that I had to provide my own coffin for faulty hardware that they had produced but to their credit they confirmed that the returned Xbox would be subject to a further 3 year warranty and that they would provide me with a months free Xbox Live Gold membership. Not bad.

Apparently it should take 3 weeks for my Xbox to be returned minus the three red rings. I’ll keep you updated…

Update: My Xbox 360 arrived back home today, just 1 week to the day after it left, it’s been to Germany, had the mortherboard replaced and a new faceplate (Thanks Microsoft!), the old faceplate had been vandalised by my son. I also got a months free Xbox Live Gold Membership.

Add to this the fact that it’s significantly quiter when idle than it was before, I’m well impressed. Good job. :)

Happy Birthday to me. 31 today. :)

That’s it. Ta ta.

I’m just not in love with ‘regular’ blogging like I was before. The spark has gone and it’s not coming back. Add to that the fact that I simply don’t have the time or the inclination to blog like I used to… it’s not you, it’s me.

So it’s time to think about how to adapt this site to better reflect the time I can commit to it on an ongoing basis, perhaps integrating feeds from other areas of the web where I am more active; Facebook, Flickr, Delicious and Last.fm. Nowadays Twitter seems more and more appealing, providing a outlet for short and sweet comment on life.

For a long time I’ve been hoping to migrate this site from Textpattern to Expression Engine so this seems like the ideal opportunity to do so. I’ve had an initial tinker and it looks like I should be able to migrate all the content fairly easily. From there I’m going to have a play with the fantastically clever Expression Engine ‘FeedGrab’ plug-in by Andrew Weaver which should allow me to pull together the various strands of data associated with me from across the internet and present them in one location.

So if things get a little funky here, you know why. :)

A couple of days late but please join me in congratulating Paul Cripps on his position as Senior New Media Designer/Developer/Monkey at Nine Four. And thanks Chris for the kind words of advice. :)

The electric sliding door on our brand new Kia Sedona leaves something to be desired. It fails to close properly most days, either beeping to alert us that it isn’t fully closed, re-opening fully of it’s own accord immediately after it has closed, or on one occasion re-opening whilst the car was in transit with all 3 children on board. Suffice to say we are not impressed.

The car is now on it’s 3rd visit to the dealership to try and resolve the problem (which they cannot reproduce). I think my next step is a call to BBC Watchdog and demand a full refund on the vehicle.

Update: 15 months on and we’re still having problems with our Kia Sedona.

The time has come to part company with my beloved car. Working from home has meant that it rarely gets driven these days and so I’m ‘downsizing’, most likely buying a 2nd hand Toyota Aygo or something similar.

The MR2 Roadster combines some fantastic ingredients; a 1.8 litre VVTI engine, low kerb weight, mid mounted engine, rear wheel drive, two seats, open top driving and great looks (in my opinion).

I love the MR2 so much that I’ve owned two in recent years, it’s reliable enough to be used as an every day car whilst still retaining that elusive ingredient which makes it hard to get out and walk away without a huge grin on your face!

The car is as follows; W Reg (2000) Manual, Convertible, 41,000 miles, Black with Leather Upholstery, Alloy wheels, ABS, Alarm, Airbags, Electric windows & mirrors, Sony CD/Tape Stereo. Full Toyota SH, 2 owners from new, MOT until June 08, Tax until Feb 08. Ins Grp 13. £6,995.

If you’re seriously interested then drop me an email ‘nathan at nine four dot co dot uk’ or call me on 01344 860156. Please leave a message if there’s no answer.

Update: The car is now sold.

I’m sat here writing this from my bed, laid up with testicles that feel like they’re the size of Melons. And the Melons, they’re throbbing.

This morning I went and had a Vasectomy. A simple and mostly painless operation which takes no more than 15 minutes and requires only a local anaesthetic.

Why am I telling you this you may ask, well because I feel inclined to communicate ‘something’ given the general response I had prior to the operation from other men.

The general consensus seems to be that in having a Vasectomy you somehow permanently give up some of your manlihood, that the operation will be painful and that you will be shaved prior to the op by a very attractive nurse, leading to a somewhat embarrassing situation. None of this is true.

I’ll admit that although I was very ‘gun ho’ in the week leading up to my op, this morning as my wife drove me to the surgical centre I felt somewhat nervous. More than anything I was nervous about stripping off in front of a couple of complete strangers, I guess because it’s not something us blokes really do with great frequency. Women on the other hand are pretty much at ease with anyone taking a look at their bits having gone through child birth a few times and the regular ‘smear tests’ that we have here in the UK.

On arriving at the centre I had a short consultation with the nurse, she asked the usual medical questions and gave me some information on recovery.

3 months after the op you have to provide 2 samples to confirm that there are no longer any traces of sperm in your semen. If the results are negative then you’re given the OK and you’re good to go, if not then you may have to return for a 2nd operation. If I remember correctly there’s a 1 in 750 chance that the op might be unsuccessful. Pretty good odds I think.

Soon I was called in to see the Doctor, this was it, the moment I had been dreading.

The Doctor seemed a nice chap and was very conversational, I was asked to strip from the waist down and lie on the operating table. After a quick inspection to verify that I did indeed have 2 testicles the Doctor injects the first anaesthetic into my right testicle, this was much less painful that I was expecting.

After a minute or so has passed the incision is made, I really couldn’t feel a thing at this stage though the doctor talked me through what he was doing, making the incision a couple of inches below the base of the penis and then snipping the tube that runs from the right testicle. At this stage I’m starting to feel like less of a pansy and I manage to relax a little more.

With the right testicle done the Doctor injects the 2nd anaesthetic. For some obscure reason this one really smarts, but I grit my teeth and it’s done before I know it. The Doctor snips my left testicle tube and sets about closing the incision.

A few minutes pass and we’re done. So much less painful than I was expecting. I have to wear snug fitting underwear for a few days and try to rest up as much as possible but that’s it.

I’m told that it will feel a little like I’ve been kicked in the balls for a couple of days and there will be some visible bruising.

So, if you’ve been putting ‘the snip’ off, there’s really nothing to worry about, regardless of what you might have heard. :)

I guess it was inevitable that at some point my desire to keep blogging here would start to falter. The 7th of June will not only mark 4 years of married life, but also 4 years of blogging at nathanpitman.com.

More and more time is being consumed by the business as we strive to find new ways to take on more work and look towards developing ‘something’ which ultimately will give us the stability to expand. There seems to be increasingly less room in my head for my personal site and in my heart ‘“Nine Four”:http://www.ninefour.co.uk’ is where I am now, nathanpitman.com is from an era that has seemingly passed.

Now, I’m not saying that this is my last post. Far from it. I’m sure I’ll be pimping the new addition to our family here when s/he arrives but as you may have noticed from the archives, content has been a little sparse over the past couple of months, to be truthful, it’s nose dived, and the quality has always left something to be desired so, well… makes me wonder if it’s worth it.

Perhaps without my personal site gnawing at my ankles for a post I’ll be able to find the space to pull together a website for the business and really begin to make the most of the opportunities that are presenting themselves.

So, without further ado, subscribe to the feed and feel free to wander off elsewhere, and accept my apologies for the severe lack of updates over the coming months.

Today it’s my Birthday, I just turned 29. 1 year closer to the big ’3 – 0’ and yet somehow I still feel like I’m young and have the whole of my life ahead of me, which I guess in actuality, is true!

My loverly wife went out and bought me something which I’ve being umming and ahhing over getting for months, an Xbox 360. Before today I had always been pretty loyal to the Sony brand, having owned a PlayStation the day they arrived on these shores and following that a PS2. I actively despised the first Xbox for it’s appalling aesthetics but the 360, well over the months since it’s launch it’s looks and its’ feature set have grown on me.

In many ways the decision to finally go out and get a 360 has been fuelled by the somewhat disappointing approach that Sony seem to be taking with the PS3. Yes on paper it might have more oomph that the 360, but I can’t help but feel that Sony are already playing catch up, and the impression I get is that they’re floundering a little under the pressure.

The PS3 will launch come November and will most likely be the most fantastic console to ever grace retailers shelves. But factor in the entry price, and consider whether Sony can really pull off the whole ‘Live’ experience to (and beyond) the standard which Microsoft have set. One things for sure, competition in the marketplace is good for us players, it’s certain to push our respective chosen brands to give us that little bit more.

Oh, and my gamer tag is ‘ninefour’ is you fancy kicking my ass at PGR3. :)

Without further delay, let me announce Baby Pitman #3! Due early to mid November. This really is the last one. Honest guv.

Surely it’s a boy, the hand is already grasping a virtual bottle of beer.

Well, it’s Christmas day, I’m not so sad to be sat at the computer, I just pre-posted this and set a live date for Christmas day. :)

Hope you all have a great one!

Yes, you too can witness my grizzled visage (according to Simon).

Oh and it’s on Flickr too if you want to post any derogatory remarks.

Tommorow is my last day as an employee. I handed my notice in at Bite CP on Monday and as of 5:30pm on Friday I’m self-employed as Managing Director of Nine Four Ltd.

Exciting? Yes. Scary? Yes.

As you probably know just 2 weeks back my wife gave birth to our second daughter ‘“Isla”:http://nathanpitman.com/journal/397/im-a-dad-again’, so the timing is hardly ideal, and hey I even ignored John’s advice.

I guess it boils down to this: At some point in your career the desire to make a change, do something different and be brave just becomes so intense that you simply have to go with it. To fight against the motivation would be insane, and the way I see it… if I never try, I’ll look back in 10 years time I wish I had, but by then it might be too late.

At the end of the day if it all goes Pete Tong, then so be it. I have the love of my family and friends and I love what I’m setting out to do, what more could you ask for in life.

Just heard on the radio that London has won it’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics!

From the BBC News website…

London won a two-way battle against Paris at the IOC vote in Singapore, after bids from Moscow, New York and Madrid were eliminated.

It will be the first time the Olympics has been held in Britain since 1948.

Wow, this is amazing news, my daughter will be 8 in 2012 and we’ll be able to take her to see a once in a lifetime event.

Way back in December last year when it was ‘neat-n-trendy’ to post wish lists, I composed my own for 2005. I thought I’d run an update for each wish that comes true.

I wish that in 2005:

1. Macromedia would revert to sensible product version numbering and ditch the ‘MX’ thing (‘Macromedia Flash 7’ is so much easier to say than ‘Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Pro’).
2. My car insurance will cost less because I still haven’t hit anything and I’m a year older.
3. Someone would find a way to squeeze more than 24 hours into a day, or failing that if I could work out a way to clone myself that’d be great.
4. -I could find the time to finish reading Are You Dave Gorman?-

Yes, I finally found the time to finish reading Are You Dave Gorman?. What a fantastic book, it’s taken me the best part of a year to finish but perhaps this has made it even more enjoyable.

It’s my birthday.., it’s my birthday… It’s my birthday, it’s my biiiirthdaaay… do do, do do do do, do do do do…

Sorry, that was a rather self indulgent post. :)

In Bracknell, Berkshire, UK. :)

I’ve been giving up Coffee for 2 weeks now. So far I’ve only had one slip up (It was a hard day at work, I was weak).

The hardest Coffee to go without, is the ‘first in the morning’ Coffee. After that the rest of the day right up to the evening is pretty easy. I’ve substituted Coffee for Hot water, hardly inspiring, but it’s a much healthier alternative.

I guess you might be thinking why I’ve given up Coffee… well mainly because if I missed a Coffee I would end up with a thumping headache, this lead me to think that perhaps I was becoming a little ‘too’ reliant on the stuff, and perhaps also what it has been doing to my insides.

So, there you go, I’m no longer a Coffee drinker (for now), which is kind of at odds with being a web developer don’t you think?

Well, most of the popular blogs seem to be sprouting ‘“retrospectives”:http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/589/lists-of-2004’ and ‘“predictions”:http://joshuaink.com/’ this week, so I thought I may as well jump on the bandwagon and grab myself a small slice of chrimbo geek traffic.

Therefore I present to you my ‘Wish list’ for 2005.

I wish that in 2005:

1. Macromedia would revert to sensible product version numbering and ditch the ‘MX’ thing (‘Macromedia Flash 7’ is so much easier to say than ‘Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Pro’).
2. My car insurance will cost less because I still haven’t hit anything and I’m a year older.
3. Someone would find a way to squeeze more than 24 hours into a day, or failing that if I could work out a way to clone myself that’d be great.
4. I could find the time to finish reading Are You Dave Gorman?

So… what are your wishes for next year?

I’m selling my ‘Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen’ (Snappy product name!) on eBay. Ok so it’s no iPod beater but if you’re after a less expensive mp3 player then this might do the job.

Includes the following items; 20GB Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen, Creative Earphones, Carrying case, USB Cable, Firewire Cable, Installation CD-ROM, Quick Start Guide, Swordfish Car Cassette Adaptor.

Features & benefits; Stores up to 8,000 songs (WMA/80kbps) or 5,000 songs (MP3/128kbps) or use the Zen as a portable hard drive, Sleek stylish anodized aluminum body fits in your pocket or can be clipped to your belt in the included travel pouch, Charge the NOMAD Jukebox Zen via your USB, Powerful simple icon-driven interface with Quick Scroller Navigation.

Happy bidding. :)

Update: Sorry, this item has now been sold.

Here’s a photo of my daughter Neve taken last night. She’s sporting matching tracksuit bottoms and top, jacket with hood and baseball cap (Worn backwards of course). How cute!

Almost 6 months to the day since I said goodbye to my youth, I seem somehow to have got it back.

Jo foolishly suggested that she have my car and I trade hers in for something more enjoyable for my drive to work, so we set off for a visit to Octagon Toyota in Reading. Well, an hour or so later I left the proud new owner of a gorgeous Black MR2 Roadster. 6 months of pretending to be someone who drives a sensible family saloon are over, I have given in to the driver inside!

Woohoo!

After 7 years I’ve decided it’s time to delete all my bookmarks and start again.

You reach a point where you have so many bookmarks that you need a search engine to navigate them. You try and organise them into neat folders and make sure that you remove dead links. It’s probably easier to search out the resource you’re after with google, than to find it in that huge bloated bookmark collection.

Time for a fresh start.

Following on from my post earlier in the year regarding the unacceptable situation which is large record companies producing Audio CDs ‘with’ intentional errors to prevent ripping, I stumbled across a number of related posts at the Register.

• Copy-crippled CDs launch in UK

• EMI admits CD copy protection compatibility problems

I think The Register have the right angle on this, essentially record companies are to blame since they have deviated (As pointed out by Phillips) from the red book standard which was established way back in 1980.

The record companies use the excuse that the climate has changed… blah blah blah, and they need a way to protect against copying and provide users with an enhanced experience.

Well, my feeling is that if they are ‘that’ serious about copy protection they should consult Phillips and establish a new standard which everyone can work to.

In conclusion The Register makes this very valid point:

With copy-crippled CDs, people buy less music and manufacturers sell less equipment. And eventually the industry will realize it can make more money by ceasing to pursue doomed attempts to prevent copying music.

Well put.

So, I’m parting with a whole load of Macromedia related ‘stuff’ that I have collected, having decided it really is time for a clear out.

Today it’s my brushed steel ‘Macromedia Devnet Travel Mug’.

Seals in the steam and keeps your coffee fresh for longer! Grab it while you can.

Update: Sorry, this item has now been sold.

Every thing’s going Pete Tong! Yesterday:

• Outlook 2002 decided to spawn 2 browsers every time I clicked on a link in a email message (Still not fixed).
• When leaving home to head off for a wedding ceremony rehearsal last night; my car refused to start until the 9th attempt, and then again on the way back (Intermittent, seems ok this morning).
• At home my copy of Firefox 0.9 now totally refuses to launch, causing some kind of application error on every attempt (Re-install makes no odds).
• While trying to solve the Firefox problem (Above) I uninstalled my email client by mistake (Argh!).
• Our TV (Only just 2 years old) has started turning itself off randomly, then refusing to turn back on until it’s ready to (Cables are all OK, it’s something inside the box).
• After 2 weeks of blistering sunshine, it’s raining again.

Hopefully today will be a better day.

Oh yes they do.

Things are on the move… RSS and Atom feeds have shifted a little (apologies) as have some pages. I’ll let you know when I’m all finished… Thanks.

Well, Neve had so much fun in the bath last night, I thought I would share her smiles and ‘splish splash madness’.

The video was recorded using a Casio QV-R40 Digital Camera, imported into Flash MX 2004 Pro, and then exported as an FLV which has been embedded into a Flash Media Playback Component.

Note: I’ve optimised the FLV for broadband (256k) playback.

Tuesday last week I took delivery of a new PC. A Dell Dimension 4600… blah blah blah.

Anyhow… what I discovered when I started the PC up was quite a huge amount of pre-installed junk that I really did not want. So my first hour of ownership was spent uninstalling various applications; AOL, MSN Explorer, BT Yahoo Anytime, Tiscali 10.0, McAfee Security Centre trial, Paint Shop Pro trial, Photo Album 5 trial, Dell Experience… etc. Groan!

I just wish Dell had the option online to specify ‘please do not pre-install any junk’ on my PC.

Are Dell the only culprits? Or are other manufacturers taking the same route…?

My daughter Neve is two months old today. This is a photo of her with my Dad, which I took at the weekend. :)

Happy Birthday to me, today I’m 27! :)

I remember the very day I bought the first issue of Edge magazine, it was during a summer when I was working for my dad at his offices in Lower Earley. This particular lunchtime I walked up to the local supermarket and handed over my hard earned cash for what was to become one of the most respected video games publications of the nineties.

Early issues reported on upcoming consoles such as the ‘“3DO”:http://www.nerv.us/features.php?feature\_id=18’, ‘Sega Saturn’ and early rumours of a ‘“Sony”:http://www.playstation.co.uk’ games console. Edge magazine is still running today but I stopped collecting some time ago; I have issues 1 through to 107.

The question is, what on earth should I do with them? Try to flog them on e-bay, or box em up and keep them for the memories?

I put my VW into the garage for a checkup. Since trading my MR2 in for it at Whites in Camberly a few months back, I’ve noticed gear selection problems.

I just had a call from the service centre to say that it needs a new gearbox. Well, i’ve only done between 1,000 and 2,000 miles at the most since owning it, probably less.

I sure hope they are going to offer to pay for it. I’ll keep you posted…

Neve was one month old on Tuesday the 14th. I can’t quite believe we’ve had her for a month. But then when I look at the photos we took when she was first born, she is already changing in appearance.

It’s be a pretty hard month, I don’t think anything ever quite prepares you for the sleep deprivation, worry and emotions that you will feel during the rollercoaster that is those first few weeks of being a parent.

This morning Neve smiled at me for the first time as I said goodbye before leaving for work.

I’m a very happy person. :)

Drew told me to:

1. Grab the nearest book.

2. Open the book to page 23.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

From a book called Dreamweaver MX Web Development by Drew McLellan:

In particular, this chapter covers the Dreamweaver MX Assets panel, the Site Manager, and the site-reporting tool.

Hmm, not very inspiring, maybe you can do better…

Via Kottke.org. Amazon launch their new search service: A9. Combining results from Google, Alexa, and Amazon.com to give you a fruity ‘mix’ of information.

There’s some neat little features, every search you conduct generates a set of book results and immediate site info, such as; ‘traffic rank, incoming links, speed and conception date’.

I’ll give it a go over the coming days, and let you know how I get on. :)

I’ve done a bit of an upgrade, I’ve finally gotton round to implimenting ‘Textpattern‘ in place of my old home baked blog authoring tool, which really didn’t rise to the challenge.

I’ve pulled across all previous blog entries, but have yet to drag the comments across.

If anything looks pear shaped or positively odd, please let me know. :)

I recently bought an audio CD only to discover that because of the ‘copy control’ features on the disc, the CD refused to play on my ‘standard’ car CD player. To begin with I thought there was something wrong with the player.

However with a little research I have discovered the scam that record companies are trying to pull on us consumers, selling us on ‘corrupted’ discs designed not to play on computers and other non standard devices.

The irony of it all is that to get around this I just used a product called ‘CD-ex’ to rip the tracks off the CD as MP3, then burn them back to a new disc for playback in my car.

I think this really sucks, after all once I have purchased a CD it’s up to me how I want to use it, isn’t it? I don’t have a home CD player, I play audio through a ‘SLIMP3‘ which is networked to my PC, so being able to ‘record’ tracks that I have paid for so that I can listen to them in the manner which I wish is a requirement.

After 9 months to the day our daughter ‘Neve Michelle Pitman’ arrived today. She is absolutely the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

I’ve only just got back from the hospital, but couldn’t resist a post to proud about her. I have numerous photos but for tonight here are a small selection that I have put together.

• Neve and her Mummy
• Little hands
• Tired little madam

Many more photos to follow!

And while I remember, she weighed in at 7lb and 1 and a half ounces. :)

This morning I inadvertently came across what might be the most convincing ‘we promise not to Spam you’ message that I’ve seen so far on the web.

It lives at ‘Flickr‘.

“Our hatred for spam is difficult to articulate. We promise unreservedly never to share your email address with anyone without your explicit permission.”

As I would have said during the 80’s at primary school. That’s cool!

Last night I made the ever so easy transition from Outlook Express to Mozilla Thunderbird on my home PC.

The ‘Import’ tools took care of the transition for me, all that was left to do was set up the built in Junk/Spam mail filtering and I was away! Thunderbird is indeed go! Bye bye Microsoft.

Today it feels as if somehow I’m saying goodbye to my youth. This is the last day I will drive to and from work in my two seater, rear engined convertible sports car. Or as it’s affectionatley known by my wife; Nibble.

Tommorow I’ll be trading him in for a ‘sensible family car’ at my local VW dealership.

Sure, I will miss my MR2 Roadster, but one day we all have to grow up a little and be responsible. I just hope the next owner loves the experience as much as I have.

Goodbye Nibble. :)

For some very obscure reason, somone has purchased my old domain ‘dovelop.com‘, and now they’re redirecting traffic to ‘Priceline‘.

How very random. :?

On Monday I took my car to have it’s front discs and pads replaced by Humphries in Reading.

On Tuesday my car went back to have the rear pads and discs done.

On Wednesday I went back to have the rears checked since they had been making a constant squeeling noise since fitting. Apparently this was fixed by the mechanic, the noise ceased.

On Thursday I took my car to have it’s MOT at Octagon Toyota in Reading. They had to fit new rear tyres, but then my car failed the MOT because the rear nearside brakes were sticking. Add to that the fact that they managed to scratch both rear alloys in the process of fitting the tyres. Not good.

Today is Friday; I’ve just walked back from Humphries having dropped my car off to have them sort the sticking brakes.

Maybe next week will be better for my car.

There’s something catchy about the badger badger badger tune, I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s the slightly intoxicating mix of audio and visual, but I just keep coming back for more… it’s like hamster dance all over again.

Whilst listening to some of our old favourite tracks the other night Jo and I started to chat about ‘long’ songs. Un-educated on the subject we considered that perhaps Guns N’ Roses’ ‘November Rain’ was the longest track we had ever heard, clocking in at over 9 minutes.

However, a quick search through our music folder revealed much longer tracks from artists such as Orbital and Spiritualized. ‘Cop shoot cop…’ is the last track on the Spiritualized album ‘Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space’ and is an impressive 16 minutes.

What is the longest ‘non-classical’ song?

Today I am mostly feeling ‘urgh’, so is Jo my wife, in fact she’s feeling particuarly ‘urgh’ because she also has the job of carrying our as yet unborn child. Not an easy job when the little tyke is already practicing his/her dance moves every half hour.

‘Urgh’ is a combination of things, runny nose, soar throat, chesty cough, fuzzy head… It’s not a nice thing to have when everywhere around you people are joyous and festive. Hopefully soon the large volumes of Vitamin C will defeat the ‘urgh’ and I can return to normality, a place where I can breath through my nostrils and sleep soundly at night.

We had a bit of a baby related scare this morning. So after a quick call to NHS Direct we rushed over to the Maternity unit at Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot.

The staff there were fantastic and quickly determined that baby was ok. They decided that to be on the safe side they would do another scan, and we were delighted to discover that it’s a girl!

There are also signs that the ‘Echogenic Bowel‘ which was detected at our 20 week scan is no longer there, good stuff. :)

So, I finally got round to scrapping my old domain and shifting everything across to this site. I’ve spent what seems like hours, days and weeks re-designing my site over and over… finally settling on something which should be simple enough to evolve and grow with time.

It was quite a trip down memory lane to dig through all the old bits, deciding where they could logically sit within a new format. Looking back at what you have done in previous years really makes you realise how much you are able to seemingly expand your knowledge without realising.

A couple of years ago when I set up dovelop.com I had only just started to play with server side languages. I built dovelop using Dreamweaver MX, relying heavily on the built in ‘Server Behaviours’. Now I look back at the code with embarrassment, not quite able to believe that I thought what I had produced was in any way acceptable.

I guess that to the untrained eye it would have looked suitably complicated and clever, but now, with a better understanding of languages like ASP and PHP I can see why fellow developers like Drew McLellan are such advocates of hand written code.

In many ways it boils down to change. To write a snippet of code yourself, taking that extra time up front reaps benefits in the long run. You understand the code, then later you come back and change it for another purpose, understanding more and more as you go. Although tools like Dreamweaver are undoubtedly great for getting started, they hinder development if you rely on the ‘unchangeable’ built in behaviours.

I guess the theme here is change. Learn how to change things, change is good.

A few months back I bought a ‘network MP3 player’, my first purchase of this kind, the idea being that it would replace my old Yamaha multidisc CD player (Which regularly refuses to eject the CD tray completely, making nasty grinding noises as it does so).

The device that I opted for was the ‘Slim Devices‘ SLIMP3 Player. I placed my order through a UK distributor and within less than 2 days the unit arrived complete with appropriate cabling. Before running the 20 metre network cable from upstairs office to downstairs lounge I plugged the unit in for a quick test. Everything worked, the player connected to the network and detected the SlimServer (The PC on which I had installed the Server software).

Now, regardless of the fact that the unit, server software and customer service was stunning, there was one thing which was holding me back from being blown away by my little SLIMP3, I had to drill through one internal wall, out through an external wall down, and then back through the external wall again to get the network cable to the lounge. Now, I ‘could’ have set up a wireless LAN connection, but I didn’t. Now that the hard work is done I couldn’t live without my SLIMP3, and now I hear that they have released the ‘Squeezebox’, a SLIMP3 player with an integrated wireless LAN and standard Ethernet connection… bliss.

Now if I could just convince my wife that we need another network music player… :)

On Thursday last week I finally ordered a SLIMP3 player from Slim Devices after months of dribbling. It arrived on Friday morning, on Saturday I enrolled the help of my Father in law to drill the required holes for the LAN cable, and now it’s all up and running.

I’m going to be a Dad and today I saw our baby for the first time when we went for our 12 week Ultrasound Scan. This was the most amazing experience of my life to date I think, I never anticipated that you would be able to see so much at such an early stage.

On Monday I reached the grand old age of 26…, it’s really quite depressing to realise that I’m now well on my way to 30.

There was a time when I felt young, I had the whole rest of my life ahead of me, but now I feel like I’m up against the clock, every minute, day, week and month counts.

Yesterday I started my new job as ‘Senior Multimedia Developer’ at Mirashade. Everyone seems very nice, atmosphere is relaxed and I have work to do, which makes a nice change. :)

On the 22nd of Apirl I’ll be starting work at my new home ‘Mirashade‘ in Reading, UK.

My new job title: Senior Newmedia Developer.

Hopefully I’ll be spending more time on interactive projects and less time on print, plus I’ll be much nearer to home. It’s all good. :)

10 days in the South of France, one Digital Camera and some fantastic light. View the blurry results for yourself.